newsmakers

A substantial number of the people who made CBS’ “Under the Dome” the surprise hit of last summer appear to have lost interest in the fate of the fictional town of Chester’s Mill, Maine.

The second-season premiere of the show about a town placed under a mysterious dome, written by Stephen King, had 9.4 million viewers June 30. That’s down from the 13.5 million who watched the series premiere in 2013, the Nielsen Co. said.

CBS pointed out that when time-shifted viewing is taken into account — people who watched a recording of “Under the Dome” either a day or two afterward — the viewership increased to 13.2 million last week. Time shifting lifted last year’s premiere to 16.7 million.

This week, the live viewership dropped even further to 7.7 million.

CBS won the week in prime time, averaging 4.9 million viewers. NBC had 4.7 million, ABC had 3.7 million, Fox had 2.73 million, Univision had 2.7 million, Telemundo had 1.5 million and ION Television had 1.1 million.